Catholics in the Allentown Diocese are in love with Pope Francis and happy with their priests but skeptical of a range of church teachings that touch on the nature of relationships and sexuality, according to a first-of-its-kind poll of the region's faithful.

The Morning Call/Muhlenberg College survey provides a broad snapshot of thinking among the laity in a year that promises to be a momentous one for Catholics locally — Francis will visit Philadelphia in September — and worldwide, as bishops will meet in October to debate the church's approach to gays, remarried divorcees and nontraditional families.

Francis, who seemed to emerge from nowhere to assume the papacy after the stunning 2013 retirement of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, has charmed his way into Catholic hearts to an astonishing degree.

In the most lopsided result of the poll, 83 percent of the 420 surveyed — a sample representative of the diocese's 263,000 Catholics — said they have a favorable view of the irrepressible Argentine Jesuit.

Like the pope, whose theological views are built on the foundation of God's mercy, the diocesan faithful think the church needs to be more welcoming of gays and divorced Catholics. But the majority don't support same-sex marriage. And in that regard, they are also like Francis, who is unorthodox in style — he once donned a red clown nose and happily poses for selfies — but not in matters of doctrine.

"Seeing somebody, anybody, polling at an 83 percent favorable rating is striking," said the poll's director, Chris Borick, political science professor and head of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion.

Those results are in line with Francis' popularity across the United States (78 percent) and Europe (84 percent), as reported by the Pew Research Center in a December survey. The papacy hasn't enjoyed such high esteem since Pope St. John Paul II's reign, before the explosion of the clerical sex abuse scandal in 2002.

Has Francis' popularity translated into a more engaged Catholic laity?

Not necessarily. About 90 percent of the respondents — self-identified Catholics in the diocese's counties of Lehigh, Northampton, Berks, Carbon and Schuylkill — say they haven't increased their attendance at Mass since Francis was elected pope, and 68 percent said their excitement about their faith has stayed about the same since he succeeded Benedict.

That seems to undercut the theory of the "Francis effect" advanced by many church leaders and observers in the heady months after Francis' election, when anecdotal evidence suggested the charismatic new leader was drawing stray members of the flock back to pews and confessionals.

Allentown Diocese Bishop John O. Barres said the Francis effect is surely at work in one respect.

"I think there is tremendous movement," he said. "A movement of the spirit."

But the gap between Francis' popularity and its practical effect may suggest something at work below the surface, said Ken Briggs of Easton, former religion editor for The New York Times who has written two books about the Catholic Church.

"The media have been very positive of him, so it's not surprising that the attitudes would be positive," Briggs said. "But to me, it also indicates some degree of disconnect between what people these days think about the pope and what they think about their own Catholicism, their own community and their own parish."

In other words, people may like the pope, but that doesn't necessarily change their opinions on matters of faith closer to home, such as their relationship with the parish priest or their opinions on thorny social issues.

For example, 68 percent support women's ordination, a possibility the church has definitively rejected.

"To me, it doesn't matter if you're male or female," said respondent Martha Gregus, 66, of Coaldale. "If you want to be a priest, you should have the right to be so."

The church also bans artificial contraception, a widely ignored teaching and one that 84 percent of respondents said should change.

Briggs said those answers point to Catholics' "going with the cultural drift."

"I think it's often underestimated how much the culture shapes the church," he said. "The church thinks of itself as teaching the culture, but the culture teaches the church a great deal."

'Who am I to judge?'

Except for abortion, homosexuality is probably the most sensitive topic in the church today. The highest winds of Francis' papacy so far have been generated by his comments on the matter, most famously by his response to a question about gay men pursuing the priesthood: "Who am I to judge?"

The poll shows 73 percent of local Catholics agree the church should be more welcoming of homosexuals, though 58 percent say it should continue to define marriage exclusively as the union of a man and woman.

The church teaches that same-sex attraction is not sinful but that homosexual activity is, because it cannot be ordered toward the goal of sexual acts — procreation within marriage.

But some of the poll respondents said the church is meant to be a home for the faithful, whatever the nature of their sexuality and relationships — or, for that matter, their history regarding abortion and contraception. Nearly half the respondents — 49 percent — said the church is too focused on such issues.

"Look, I think [gays] were always in our church, but nobody made a point of it," said Bernie Skripek, 82, a poll respondent from Catasauqua. "Yes, I had gay friends, and they were very, very strong Catholics. I think that's what the church is for."

The struggle is in striking the right balance between welcoming gays and upholding doctrine, said Chris Nickischer, a respondent from Coplay.

"I might be wrong, and I might not agree with the lifestyle, but I agree people need to hear the truth about the word of God," said Nickischer, 54. "But if you shun them, how are they going to learn the truth about the word of God … or how God pertains to their lifestyle?"

The Rev. Thomas Dailey, director of the Salesian Center for Faith and Culture at DeSales University, said he doesn't know if the poll suggests a desire to change church teaching as much as it suggests the church is right to move in the direction it is with regard to gay parishioners.

"Respecting and embracing people for being people — that's Step 1," he said. "The next concern is the truth of what people believe or how they act. That's Step 2." With Francis, Dailey added, "the emphasis is doing Step 1 first, because obviously you can't do Step 2 without doing Step 1."

The church is seeking the same balance in its approach to divorced people who remarry without obtaining annulments. The church regards these unions as adulterous, which is a barrier to receiving Holy Communion.

In the poll, 90 percent of respondents said the divorced and remarried should be allowed to take Communion. But whether this is possible has sharply divided conservative and progressive cardinals and bishops. Barres said he expects a "lively discussion" of the topic when bishops meet for an October synod, which will also examine the role of gays in the church.

In all such discussions, "mercy and truth always go together," Barres said.

The dynamics of the modern family will also be the focus of the World Meeting of Families, the massive Philadelphia gathering where Francis will celebrate Mass on Sept. 27 at the conclusion of his first visit to the United States. The pontiff's appearance is expected to draw more than 1 million.

Marriage for priests

The poll, conducted March 2-10, has a margin of error of 6 percentage points. More than 70 percent of the respondents were over 50, 92 percent were white, 4 percent were Hispanic and about 1 percent were African-American. Politically, they lined up at 44 percent Democrat, 36 percent Republican and 15 percent independent.

The number of Hispanics in the diocese is far higher than reflected by the poll — 10 of the 94 parishes offer Spanish-language Masses — but because the diocese doesn't have precise ethnic and racial breakdowns of its parishes, Borick was unable to adjust the poll to reflect that. Even so, he placed the level of confidence in the results at 95 percent.

Dailey, reviewing the results, said he found nothing surprising but said some of the answers suggest the church must do a better job explaining why it teaches what it does.

For example, the notion of excluding women from the priesthood doesn't sit well in a pluralistic society, but the teaching is theological, not cultural, he said, based largely on the fact that Christ chose only male apostles.

Likewise, 73 percent said the church should let priests marry.

The practice is a matter of discipline, not doctrine — priests in Eastern rites are permitted to marry, for example — so it could very well change.

The ban on artificial contraception, however, is rooted in the overall teaching on the sanctity of life and purpose of marriage. When Catholics widely reject such a teaching, "it's a wake-up call to teachers of the faith we have to do a better job," Dailey said. "We have to break through the cultural mind-set."

However closely they follow church teachings, the region's Catholics generally like their priests, with 67 percent saying their parish priest was in touch with their concerns.

"I love my church," said Jamie Gassler, 31, a member of St. Jane Frances de Chantal parish in Palmer Township. "I have nothing bad to say. The monsignor [the Rev. Stephen J. Radocha] is very interesting and to the point, very down-to-earth."

Nickischer, who attends St. John the Baptist in Whitehall Township, said he would like to see a greater focus on religious education at the parish level.

"This may sound weird, but I would make sure families have more Bible-based teaching," he said. "That's what I see from the Protestants. They start at a very young age."

Skripek, a member of the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Catasauqua, said he lamented the 2008 closure and consolidation of about a third of the parishes in the diocese, but he understood the reasons behind it.

"I understand with finances and the shortage of priests, every business — and the church is a business — has to consolidate," he said.

The answers on the impact of the clerical abuse scandal were mixed, with 72 percent saying it hadn't changed their Mass attendance and 73 percent saying it hadn't affected how much money they give to the church.

But to a broader question on whether the scandal had an "effect on your relationship" with the church, 46 percent said it had a large or somewhat large effect, while 42 percent said it had no effect.

Barres said the diocese has continued to refine and strengthen its child-protection programs. But the scandal, with its sickening stories of priests preying on children in parish after parish, "was the church's 9/11," he said. "We can never rest. We have to be constantly vigilant."